846 Malayan Law Journal [2011] 7 MLJ could have caused her death. The pathologist who carried out the post mortem was of the opinion that either the head injury or the strangulation could have caused the death of the deceased. The pathologist also opined that the injuries were not self-inflicted and that they were most likely sustained while the deceased was acting in self defence while thwarting frontal assaults on her. The pathologist took swabs from various parts of the body of the deceased (‘DNA specimens’) for DNA analysis. The case for the prosecution was constructed from the various pieces of circumstantial evidence gathered from the relevant witnesses concerned with this case. Although no knife was recovered from the scene of the crime by the police CSI forensic team, several items such as a bloodied knife sheath, an electric iron with a broken handle and with dark spots on the white chord attached to it, which according to the deceased’s friend were never there before the incident, and a raffia string were recovered. An off-duty security guard who was living in the same block of flats as the deceased’s friends gave evidence that at about 2.30pm of the day in question he had seen the accused, whom he knew by sight, standing on the stairs near the second floor of the block and that he also saw a lady clad in a red t-shirt and a batek sarong in front of the door of the apartment, which was on the same floor. The police officer who arrested the accused (‘the arresting officer’) testified that the accused had tried to escape arrest by the police. Among the items seized from the accused when he was arrested were a set of keys and a Nokia handphone model 3310. The set of keys was subsequently identified by the deceased’s friend as the same set of keys which she had given to the deceased on the morning of 9 March 2006. Although the deceased’s friend testified that the deceased had a Nokia handphone she was unable to recall the specific model. The government chemist who carried out the DNA profiling analysis on all the DNA specimens, collected by the pathologist from various parts of the deceased’s body, confirmed that the DNA specimens contained a mixed DNA profile contributed by both the accused and the deceased. The chemist also testified that he found matching DNA profiles from the mixed profile on, among others, the raffia string, the electric iron and the knife sheath. The chemist’s analysis of the specimen obtained by the pathologist from the outer vulva (‘private part’) of the deceased matched with the blood specimen contributed by the accused. The accused, who elected to read out an unsworn statement from the dock, said that on the day of the incident his friend Roslan and he had approached the deceased, whom they had befriended earlier, to borrow RM20 from her. According to the accused when the deceased refused to accede to their request and raised her voice, the accused had covered her mouth and pushed her into the house. At that juncture it was his version that the deceased had bitten his finger and that he had reacted by pushing her harder, which was when he had developed an asthma attack and become unaware of what had happened. Then when he finally came to, he claimed he saw the deceased with blood on her head lying motionless on the mattress and A B C D E F G H I